Hugo Reading Round-up

I’m having some health issues (perimenopause, 0/10 do not recommend) that leave me pretty exhausted and scatterbrained so I’ve been meaning to do this post forever and just… keep forgetting.

I haven’t actually finished anything since I finished reading for the Hugos. I didn’t read everything on the ballot because I’m not torturing myself with works I know I’m not going to like just for the sake of completion. I DNF stuff all the time or read the description and opt out entirely.

Novellas, novelettes and short stories were all really strong categories this year, and I used some totally arbitrary metric to decide between the two novelettes I really liked. So, of the new things I read for the awards, here’s what I thought:

Navigational Entanglements
This has some fantastic worldbuilding and fascinating characters and it was wonderful to watch all these enemies become friends (and in some cases lovers) over the course of the book. The ending was just about perfect. I haven’t read any of de Bodard’s work in a while, mostly due to overwhelm, and I’m really glad the awards put this one in my path.

“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
This is just a really excellent, cathartic read, especially if you’ve been in a shitty relationship where your partner ground you down so slowly you barely noticed it until you’d made yourself so small you nearly disappeared. Another one that just really sticks the landing.

“Lake of Souls”
This wasn’t my top pick for the awards, but I still really liked how this story came together. It was weird, and went places I wasn’t expected, but it was really lovely as well. Well, lovely for one of the characters.

“Loneliness Universe”
I really really love this metaphor for the specific loneliness and disconnect of the lockdown pandemic years. Especially as someone still partially living that. It really captures the essence of “together but apart” and I really loved this story!